posted at 12:10 pm on February 27, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Will Catholic bishops eventually drop their objections to the HHS mandate and comply, even though it would require them to fund and facilitate access to contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients like IUDs and “ella” that violate their deeply-held doctrines on the sanctity of life? Not according to Francis Cardinal George, archbishop of Barack Obama’s home town of Chicago. In a missive to parishioners on the first Sunday of Lent, Cardinal George warns that the Catholic Church will shut down its hospitals, clinics, and charities before submitting to the mandate — and provides a little history lesson as well:

What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down. …

Since 1915, the Catholic bishops of the United States have taught that basic health care should be accessible to all in a just society. Two years ago, we asked that whatever instruments were crafted to care for all, the Hyde and Weldon and Church amendments restricting funding for abortion and respecting institutional conscience continue to be incorporated into law. They were excluded. As well, the present health care reform act doesn’t cover entire sections of the U.S. population. It is not universal.

The provision of health care should not demand “giving up” religious liberty. Liberty of religion is more than freedom of worship. Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship-no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society.

The strangest accusation in this manipulated public discussion has the bishops not respecting the separation between church and state. The bishops would love to have the separation between church and state we thought we enjoyed just a few months ago, when we were free to run Catholic institutions in conformity with the demands of the Catholic faith, when the government couldn’t tell us which of our ministries are Catholic and which not, when the law protected rather than crushed conscience. The state is making itself into a church. The bishops didn’t begin this dismaying conflict nor choose its timing. We would love to have it ended as quickly as possible. It’s up to the government to stop the attack.

Insofar as advocates of the mandate insist that Catholic bishops are out of touch with their own congregations, Cardinal George exposes this as a big non-sequitur:

Practically, we’re told that the majority of Catholics use artificial contraception. There are properly medical reasons, in some circumstances, for the use of contraceptive pills, as everyone knows. But even if contraceptives were used by a majority of couples only and exclusively to suppress a possible pregnancy, behavior doesn’t determine morality. If it can be shown that a majority of Catholic students cheat on their exams, it is still wrong to cheat on exams. Trimming morality to how we behave guts the Gospel call to conversion of life and rejection of sin.

Theoretically, it is argued that there are Catholic voices that disagree with the teaching of the church and therefore with the bishops. There have always been those whose personal faith is not adequate to the faith of the church. Perhaps this is the time for everyone to re-read the Acts of the Apostles. Bishops are the successors of the apostles; they collectively receive the authority to teach and govern that Christ bestowed upon the apostles. Bishops don’t claim to speak for every baptized Catholic. Bishops speak, rather, for the Catholic and apostolic faith. Those who hold that faith gather with them; others go their own way. They are and should be free to do so, but they deceive themselves and others in calling their organizations Catholic.

Although Cardinal George doesn’t spell this out, this is the crux of the difference between the church and the Obama administration. Membership in the Catholic Church is voluntary, as is employment in their extended organizations like schools, hospitals, and the like. If people don’t like the teachings of the church or want to work for an employer willing to give them contraception at no expense, they are free to seek those associations as they like. Obama and his HHS want to force Catholic organizations to accept the administration doctrine on contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients, and force Catholic organizations to fund and facilitate access to them — by declaring which organizations the church runs to be authentically religious and which are not, an arrogance without precedent in the US, although certainly precedents in other political models abound, as Cardinal George points out.

The church may have to demonstrate the proper jurisdiction for that designation, George warns, if the government insists on forcing religious organizations to violate their own principles:

If you haven’t already purchased the Archdiocesan Directory for 2012, I would suggest you get one as a souvenir. On page L-3, there is a complete list of Catholic hospitals and health care institutions in Cook and Lake counties. Each entry represents much sacrifice on the part of medical personnel, administrators and religious sponsors. Each name signifies the love of Christ to people of all classes and races and religions. Two Lents from now, unless something changes, that page will be blank.

Catholics may be giving up some luxuries for Lent, but the bishops aren’t giving up this fight. They seem ready to make this a weekly battle with the Obama administration, and willing to escalate it to the point of closing doors and stopping services, a move that will make the issue acute in many of the areas where Obama normally would draw his most fervent support.

Update: A lot of people in the comments and on Twitter think that closing the Catholic institutions is what Obama has in mind, in order to make people more dependent on government. Possibly, but the outcome will mean skyrocketing spending and angering a lot of people who will find out just how limited government intervention actually is. Sounds like one of those ivory-tower solutions that always succeed in theory … kind of like Obamanomics.

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Comments

Serious question: what does the Church do in the states (I think there are 8) that require health insurance to include coverage for contraception and sterilization?

cam2 on February 27, 2012 at 4:53 PM

I don’t know for sure, but other commenters here have indicated that those states allow exemptions for religious institutions. Also, I do know that many Catholic institutions are self-insured…which may be another way around state requirements.

Besides, this is a slam dunk legal case and I think Bishop George knows this. He is just keeping the flock riled up.

rockmom on February 27, 2012 at 4:37 PM

Slam dunk legal case?

LMFAO! I suggest that you take a con law class before further pontificating on the constitutionality of matters such as this. You might also wish to read Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993), Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

I absolutely adore ignorant layman — or laywomen, in this case — proclaiming that a case is a slamdunk when precedent going back to 1844 in Vidal v. Girard’s Executors proves otherwise. You are all so hysterically funny.

PS: Before you start Polly-wanna-crackering Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith, it is not on point. The state was not forcing anyone to do anything. Unemployment insurance is not a right and a state can make it conditional. Also, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which passed the House unanimously, passed the Senate 97-3, and was signed into law by Bill Clinton, superseded Smith.

Serious question: what does the Church do in the states (I think there are 8) that require health insurance to include coverage for contraception and sterilization?

cam2 on February 27, 2012 at 4:53 PM

No state forces religious institutions to pay for insurance with contraception, etc., coverage. The 3 states that do not allow opt outs – California, New York, and Oregon – permit organisations with conscientious objections to provide coverage through ERISA. Obama’s mandate does not have this option.

So yes, if individuals working for a catholic institution are forced to choose from only plans that don’t allow contraception, and the insurance is being contracted out to a private insurance company, and the church isn’t being invoiced for the services, yes, their individual liberty to purchase whatever plan they can afford and is legal is being compromised.

Boomer_Sooner on February 27, 2012 at 3:35 PM

You do know that

A) Even if you’re employed you can go get your own health plan elsewhere, in many cases subsidized by your employer adding at least part of your premium you’re not paying into your check.

B) You can go work someplace else.

Yeah, the CC my deserve this to an extent. But even the Duggars will have to pay for birth control as part of their health care plans. You won’t even be able to buy an individual plan that doesn’t cover female birth control, even as a man.

Right now with all the mandates already in insurance my premium is higher because our insurance plan HAS TO cover pregnancy, etc regardless of the sex of the insured.

To me it seems like you’re pissed at the Catholic church and want revenge, ignoring that if they lose on this, individual choice to NOT pay for BC is lost. People should be able to buy health insurance the way they buy car insurance. If I want just liability on my car, I can do that. If I want just catastrophic I should be able to do that. The reason my premiums are so high at work have to do primarily with all the mandates on group insurance providers. The women in the office have to be insured for prostate exams and the men have to be insured for pregnancy.

You’re arguing that out of revenge we should take away individual liberty. If your healthplan stinks and you want out of it, find a new job. But if every employer has to cover things you disagree with because the government says so, THEN your liberty is lost. This mandate makes it impossible for a Catholic to not have part of his income, no matter where he works if they offer coverage, pay for things he is opposed to. Even when employers “pay the premium” that is reducing his salary.

And when women can get something for “free” that they used to have to make an economic choice about, the cost of that item will go up. Poor women who aren’t working or have jobs with no healthcare will not be able to get $4 BC any more because twice as many women are using it than before, even if just for the complexion side effects.

Yeah, the hero in this fight is tainted. Doesn’t mean we should intentionally lose to punish them for other things.

In response to my own question, I did a quick search and found an interesting article in The New Republic (I know, I know) on conflicts in Catholic health care institutions. There have been some solutions that may raise eyebrows here, including carving out a separate floor or unit of the hospital that is run independently and offers abortions, sterilization, etc.:

sometimes institutions have been able to reconcile religion and medicine with creative solutions. When a secular hospital in Kingston, New York, merged with a Catholic institution, in effect reducing the community’s hospitals from three to two, administrators set up a separate maternity unit in the parking lot. It provides a full range of reproductive services, including abortion. In Troy, New York, leaders of a newly merged secular-Catholic hospital came up with a different solution: The maternity unit operates on the second floor, as a “hospital within the hospital”—complete with its own financial operations.

I did not know that the Catholic institutions were forcing people to work for them.
If you want Catholics to choke on this mandate because you are mad at their voting record, you are helping the government overreach as much as the next person.
BakerAllie on February 27, 2012 at 4:47 PM

People aren’t forced to work for a Catholic professional institution. You’re absolutely right. But most are all but forced through the structure of our health care system to act in an employer-based health insurance scenario. It’s not their fault politicians crafter this bad idea for something that should have been built around private transactions and it’s not their fault that because of those decisions that for MOST PEOPLE your employer based insurance is the only feasible option.

Sure, they can switch jobs, maybe move their family to another city or hospital across town. But all that, just so people can’t get coverage for contraceptives when the institution isn’t even being invoiced for them? Shouldn’t the individual liberty to purchase a plan that fits YOUR morals be more important in that circumstance if the insurer themselves is agreeing to underwrite the costs instead?

So everybody should have to move a job, suck it up, or go to planned parenthood for bc just so the catholic bishops who covered up molestation can stamp their feet about employees getting contraceptives the church isn’t even being invoiced for? That bs.

People should have a right, in that circumstance, to the plan they desire and can pay for, it’s not hurting the church and they aren’t being billed for it.

And they wouldn’t even be in this situation of they hadn’t hoisted Obamacare on us all in the first place. Now they just don’t want it applied to them. Eff that.

Sad. I was hoping against hope that he would lay down the necessary challenge. “We will not give up our mission from God for Caesar. Nor will we decease caring for the poor. This is still a free nation -not the old Soviet Union – You may send in your troops if you choose -we will be waiting armed with prayer.”

Catholic church says it is wrong to do such and such: At least in this country you can say “pfft, forget it” and nothing happens to you that you didn’t choose

Government says it is wrong to do such and such: You can say “pfft, forget it,” but that gets you arrested, fined, possibly a visit from the IRS, maybe wage garnishment, etc.

One of the many reasons I’m no longer Catholic is because they support government doing the church’s job too much. They were complicit in late 1920s/early 1930s Germany too.

Want to provide universal healthcare, CC? Then stop indirectly telling your congregations that their tax dollars are like tithes to the church of government and start asking them to support less government and more donations to the charities that can provide healthcare to those without it. Novel, huh?

Eat it Cardinal pedophile protector. I dare you to shut down the catholic schools and hospitals over this. If I don’t get out of Obamacare’s compromising of my principals because of you, you don’t get to either. Take it up with god. This is America and individual liberty should take precedence over institutional liberty. It’s not on their invoices now. So stop trying to affect the individual liberty of those working for you.

Boomer_Sooner

You have made the most intellectually lazy argument I’ve heard yet. So b/c they supported basically the expansion of Medicaid to all those w/out insurance, they must now agree to the violation of conscience and disregard of the first amendment by this mandate? Got it.

No one’s individual liberty is in jeopardy if OCs aren’t covered by their health insurance plan, weirdo! You need a valium for your anti-Catholic hyperventilating.

That’s right, nothing. You have a company that despite your best efforts otherwise is all men, you should not have to pay for pregnancy coverage in your premium. All women? Should not have to cover prostates. All 20 men and women in your company unanimously decide on a certain menu of coverage, should be able to provide just that.

But no. An employer HAS TO cover mental health treatment with the same copays of their other office visits, with what percentage of employees even wanting or using that?

And as I’ve already written the religious liberty threatened here is the individual’s liberty, not the institution’s. Your revenge motive is how people accept things their morality normally wouldn’t.

You do NOT have to purchase a plan that covers it if you don’t want to, and of you ever did I would argue just a vehemently against that on the same basis of individual liberty. This isn’t about mandating that ALL PLANS cover contraception, but that ALL people who want it to and can afford it can get it regardless of who they work for and that the costs of the coverage become underwritten by the insurer rather than the institution if it’s a religious employer the a Catholic hospital.

The problem is that that’s not good enough for people, the church wants to make the political argument that even though it’ll be no where on their bill, just being associated with someone being allowed access to bc in the ranks is tantamount to an action worthy of shutting down hospitals and schools. That’s just a step too far for such a tainted hero as the CC as you say.

The only basis of this complaint is that, even if the CC isn’t INVOICED for the services, the cost will still be funneled back by the insurers somewhere else. Sorry, legally, you’re still not bring charged for jack. And that’s the same argument liberals make to justify single-payer or mandated health conversge like I said earlier, because even if I don’t get invoiced for “Robert’s unpayed uninsured surgery” my costs and premiums rise and I pay for it anyway, so Robert should be MANDATED to have health insurance to save my costs.

You know what healthcare plans should be REQUIRED to cover? NOTHING
That’s right, nothing. You have a company that despite your best efforts otherwise is all men, you should not have to pay for pregnancy coverage in your premium. All women? Should not have to cover prostates. All 20 men and women in your company unanimously decide on a certain menu of coverage, should be able to provide just that.
But no. An employer HAS TO cover mental health treatment with the same copays of their other office visits, with what percentage of employees even wanting or using that?
And as I’ve already written the religious liberty threatened here is the individual’s liberty, not the institution’s. Your revenge motive is how people accept things their morality normally wouldn’t.
PastorJon on February 27, 2012 at 5:38 PM

I agree entirely. It also, however, shouldn’t be able to be mandated that any person NOT be able to purchase the plan they do desire and can afford so long as its legal and the insurers underwrite the costs of parts of it that religious institutions don’t want to pay for. Seems pretty logical to me.

Based on the whispers I hear from many people I know, including those who voted for Obamanation, this move by he and HHS does not sit well AT ALL. They had to have polled this before they did it…do they live in a cocoon of “yes” men, or is there a much more sinister plan underway?

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to start to wonder. Hell, if my neighbor, a dem votes who thinks this idiot is a “nice guy”, is scratching his head and wondering why in the hell he would take this risk in an election year, I’ve got to think the fence sitters are starting to wonder as well………..

There is no way the Catholic Church eventually rolls over on this. He picked the wrong battle this time.

One can only hope. Despite my feelings on this, the CC is doing a good job shaping the narrative, as illogical and postured as it may be, and of it helps to oust Obama, I may actually cheer in the end. But I don’t see it playing out like you think and the minute the dems can get back a hold of the narrative about how the church isn’t even being asked to actually pay for it anymore, but they continue to posture and possibly maybe even make an attempt at closing hospitals and schools, it’s gonna backfire, and quick.

Plus, as you can tell, I can’t stand the fact that a bishop who aided in the “hide-a-pedophile” scandal in the church and put more young people at risk by refusing to remove a priest after being provided information and requests from the Vatican to do so, until the guy was arrested and prosecuted, is allowed to sit here and make threats of closing down schools if the church’s lofty moral reproductive principals aren’t catered too so far that not even being asked to pay the the services isn’t good enough for them.

This guy has zero moral authority on sexual principles and is a hypocrite of the highest order. You won’t get rid of a molester, but you’ll shut down hospitals to keep your employees from accessing bc along with the rest of the medical care? Ridiculous.

And you all falling for it will be pitching a fit next time the CC’s religious scruples say YOU should be forced to compromise YOUR principles again when immigration reform comes back up, entitlement reform, or the repeal of their favorite Obamacare for you, just not for us campaign.

Not an expert, not a Catholic,.. but I’m glad the Bishops are fighting this fight. Because when the government can tell you what your principle are to allow, regardless of your opinion, your church’s opinion, it’s nothing to do with healthcare.

It’s about a small leftwing cadre forcing their view on people of faith in the most cruel way imaginable. Obey us…

or shut down,

and stop serving the people who came to you for help.

It’s an evil thing to force a person to choose like this, and the pro-abortion side is smirking as they do it.. so what, we win..

and millions loose hospital access..

feel better now about that free morning after pill?

The Bishops are right to fight this fight.. and I’m greatful they are.

I’m not clear where in the Constitution the government – even via legislation – can dictate what a private company must sell let alone having an unelected executive agency mandate what products a company must or cannot sell.
The PutzOTUS and his tyrannical executive bureaucracy are the most anti-Constitution and anti-America liberal fascists in American history

Shouldn’t the individual liberty to purchase a plan that fits YOUR morals be more important in that circumstance if the insurer themselves is agreeing to underwrite the costs instead?

It’s not about what you or anyone else thinks is better, or even if everybody else agrees with you that what you say is better actually would be.

Look – you may not like the Church, or the bishops. You may even think they are a bunch of pedophiles. But at the end of the day, the Church runs those institutions, and they either have religious freedom or they don’t, and if they don’t, neither does anyone.

Sorry – I’m not giving it up on the say-so of the likes of YOU as to what’s “more important”. And the constitution is on MY side on this one.

So eat it and shut the he** up; I don’t care if you don’t like it. In fact, I hope you don’t.

This guy has zero moral authority on sexual principles and is a hypocrite of the highest order. You won’t get rid of a molester, but you’ll shut down hospitals to keep your employees from accessing bc along with the rest of the medical care? Ridiculous.

No, what’s ridiculous is you thinking anyone’s going to lay down their religious freedom because people like you feel they lack moral authority.

They don’t need any, least of all as conferred by the likes of you. Their freedoms are the same as anyone else’s, and let’s see you try to take it away.

Look – you may not like the Church, or the bishops. You may even think they are a bunch of pedophiles. But at the end of the day, the Church runs those institutions, and they either have religious freedom or they don’t, and if they don’t, neither does anyone.
Sorry – I’m not giving it up on the say-so of the likes of YOU as to what’s “more important”. And the constitution is on MY side on this one.
So eat it and shut the he** up; I don’t care if you don’t like it. In fact, I hope you don’t.
Dirty Creature on February 27, 2012 at 6:42 PM

They do have religious freedom. They were even given the compromise of not being the ones to have to underwrite the costs.

But what you are positing is the religious institutional freedom to trump an individual’s liberty to purchase any legal product or plan they see as fit to THEIR morals and mores, even though the bill is being footed by someone else.

If HHS was actually holding the line that the church must allow access to them on insurance plans AND pay for them you WOULD have a point. But since the insurers are underwriting the costs, you’re only arguing against individual liberty, not for religious liberty.

You’re arguing for religious authority over the free choices of free people in a situation that now affects them in zero way, beyond petty political rhetorical games that lefties use to justify mandates in the first place. You’re actually LEGITIMIZING those leftist narratives for them even.

No, what’s ridiculous is you thinking anyone’s going to lay down their religious freedom because people like you feel they lack moral authority.
They don’t need any, least of all as conferred by the likes of you. Their freedoms are the same as anyone else’s, and let’s see you try to take it away.
As I said before — eat it.
Dirty Creature on February 27, 2012 at 6:47 PM

So you think a cardinal who protected a later arrested, and prosecuted child molester, DOES possess a moral authority on issues of sex, reproduction, and the morality of activities surrounding it?

Does Jerry Sandusky still have a moral authority to speak on issues of children’s wellbeing as well? They just need love you know, a little horsing around.

So you think a cardinal who protected a later arrested, and prosecuted child molester, DOES possess a moral authority on issues of sex, reproduction, and the morality of activities surrounding it?

Does Jerry Sandusky still have a moral authority to speak on issues of children’s wellbeing as well? They just need love you know, a little horsing around.

Well, I’ll tell you what — I think you’re a lot of interesting things, too. When it comes to moral authority, it’s hard to even imagine anyone coming in behind you. That said — what rights of YOURS do *I* now get to take away? Or is that something only YOU get to do?

They do have religious freedom. They were even given the compromise of not being the ones to have to underwrite the costs.

But what you are positing is the religious institutional freedom to trump an individual’s liberty to purchase any legal product or plan they see as fit to THEIR morals and mores, even though the bill is being footed by someone else.

To the first paragraph, compromise means each side gives something up. So you know you’re asking nothing less than for some religious freedom to be given up. Bullsh**. I don’t care in what cause you ask it – No sale. You want ANY of my freedom? Come to my house and ask for it. Hint: best get your affairs in order first.

To the second, no, moron – what I’m positing is the freedom not to have to be the person SELLING whatever someone else’s morals permit him to want to purchase.

To the first paragraph, compromise means each side gives something up. So you know you’re asking nothing less than for some religious freedom to be given up. Bullsh**. I don’t care in what cause you ask it – No sale. You want ANY of my freedom? Come to my house and ask for it. Hint: best get your affairs in order first.

BS, I may have used the word “compromise” because it’s been the meme in the headlines about the offered solution to the problem of religious institutions being forced to pay for contraceptivess when it’s against their beliefs. The “compromise” was merely that the problem, that religious institutions would have to pay for them, was done away with by having the cost be taken up by the private insurance companies rather than in the employer contribution parts of their insurance plans. This eliminating the religious conundrum. They DON’T pay for them now. So still whining from the church of Obamacare is just posturing. Their morals are no longer being challenged. They dont have to pay. The insurers underwrite the costs. Now they’re just attempting to use spinning and narrative building to prevent their employees from exercises their own personal liberty to purchase whatever plan they see fit and to their morals, because the church doesn’t have to pay for that part. So suck it up. And find better messengers than bishops who covered up child molestors.

To the second, no, moron – what I’m positing is the freedom not to have to be the person SELLING whatever someone else’s morals permit him to want to purchase.
Dirty Creature on February 27, 2012 at 7:11 PM

Again, if the institution contracts out their insurance policies to a private company, self-insuring I’m on your side, but if it’s contracted out to a private insurer, and the insurer is the one paying and selling the service, NOT the church, then your argument doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on and is one based solely on not wanting to be associated with it period, even if it doesn’t violate the constitutional rights of the church and would result in limiting the individual liberty of individual American professionals who just so happen to do great work at non-exclusive catholic institutions.

You have me arguing that the mandate in Romneycare and later Obamacare was indeed the republican vision and the reason why Tea Partiers are being sold out on these issues, they never really agreed with conservatives in the first place and only sought to use us against their enemies when they enacted the policies that THEY had come up with. Stating that this is why our home as conservatives may not ultimately be with the R’s and that a Whig-ian transition might be due in serious thought.

And you caught me arguing FOR tax cuts against the establishments position of tax increases on the middle class just so they can find social security. But I thought we were all in agreeable that SS was a bad idea and remember that whole idea “whither it on the vine”. I was arguing for tax cuts and cutting down SS. You I guess we’re arguing for tax increases and less entitlement reform spending reductions.

Update: A lot of people in the comments and on Twitter think that closing the Catholic institutions is what Obama has in mind, in order to make people more dependent on government.

Bonus: Once Catholic institutions no longer are able to provide public charity, the meme from the left will be, “Gee, since these Catholics don’t contribute anything to society, time to revoke their tax-exempt status…” and bankrupt many churches (Catholic and other Christian denominations alike).

It’s not just about dependence on government, but about getting rid of religion — specifically Christianity and especially Catholicism — in every form in the U.S.

The “compromise” was merely that the problem, that religious institutions would have to pay for them, was done away with by having the cost be taken up by the private insurance companies rather than in the employer contribution parts of their insurance plans. This eliminating the religious conundrum.

Heh. You know, I don’t know whether to laugh, or just smile patronizingly at your idiocy, that you think it is for you, or Zero, or anyone else, to decide for them what the Church’s problem with this was. They aren’t allowed to participate in evil (defined how ever they see fit, since that’s what religion is all about.) Neither they nor their God ever said it was about money, you and yours did. That you’re surprised that they aren’t buying it or noticing the attempted sleight of hand… well, let me just say it’s hard to imagine the confusion of ideas that would lead you to have thought it was ever going to work.

Heh. You know, I don’t know whether to laugh, or just smile patronizingly at your idiocy, that you think it is for you, or Zero, or anyone else, to decide for them what the Church’s problem with this was. They aren’t allowed to participate in evil (defined how ever they see fit, since that’s what religion is all about.) Neither they nor their God ever said it was about money, you and yours did. That you’re surprised that they aren’t buying it or noticing the attempted sleight of hand… well, let me just say it’s hard to imagine the confusion of ideas that would lead you to have thought it was ever going to work.
Dirty Creature on February 27, 2012 at 7:57 PM

Oh, so I’m wrong then that it wasn’t about opposing contraceptives but was about opposing institutions from having to pay for it against their religious scruples? I’m sorry, I thought I’d heard that repeated ad nauseum by those defending the CC’s stance. Forgive me, I must have read all that wrong.

It’s REALLY about how they’re not allowed to participate in evil! I got it now. It’s too bad the threat of closing down hospitals here was made by a guy who protected a man who was convicted of molesting children even though he was given evidence and requests to remove him. Guess that whole zero tolerance for evil policy is a little looser than all that I guess??

You’re now doing rhetorical cartwheels trying to ignore the point. The church doesn’t have to pay now. They aren’t contributing and bc becomes an issue between the insurers and the insured. But cardinal “hide-a-pedophile” still wants to play like that not the case, and that it’s worth shutting down hospitals and schools to prove his point.

After the no longer had to pay, it’s no longer an issue of religious freedom or constitutional rights, it becomes an issue of personal liberty, association, an rights to enter independent contracts with insurers for services the church will have no financial part in.

And if you’d read some of my other posts you might refrain from slandering me by associating Obama and the like as “me and mine”. The vast majority of my vehement opposition to the catholic church on this is because of how they’ve saddled us with Obamacare, amnesty, a welfare state, over and over and over again they have screwed conservatives and told us we must compromise on OUR principles for the sale of their religious scruples and it is US who have had to bear the burden of the consequences.

They shouldn’t have to pay, and they don’t now, but I will not stand here and pretend that I’m doing a kindred spirit a favor, they are going to stab us in the back again as soon as they’re done using us to make sure their Obamacare doesn’t apply to them and only to us, with its mandates for everyone else, and when immigration comes rears it’s ugly head again.

But I guess none of that bothers you and you don’t think they’ve made they’re own bed and have been accommodated anyway. But still wish to push.

You only like it this time because they’re pushing too far in a direction that you personally like.

O’Bozo and his Chicago Marxist, anarchist, atheist, racist supporters declared war on Cardinal George a couple years ago, trying to insult him by repeatedly praising his deceased predecessor Bernardin, one of the worst, most liberal, most theologically bankrupt Catholic Cardinals in memory.

They badly underestimated George, who has stones the size of the Vatican and the added strength that comes from actually knowing what it says in the Bible. Bring it on, libwits.

I want to see Cardinal George standing on the front steps of Holy Name Cathedral reading off a list of “catholic” Chicago politicians who actively support abortion and are being ex-communicated from the church.

Remind me again how granting exemptions to the catholic church on this issue would be different than granting exemptions to the muslum faithful concerning sharia law? Why do we pander to ANY religion when they are all so clearly fabricated by man?

I want to see Cardinal George standing on the front steps of Holy Name Cathedral reading off a list of “catholic” Chicago politicians who actively support abortion and are being ex-communicated from the church.

I support Cardinal George and his moral position on religious freedom but I would ask were was he when Obamacare took our economic freedom?
A government that is powerful enough to mandate that we purchase will surly mandate what we purchase.
The Cardinal would replace “you” with “government” in Matthew 25:31-46.
And what of the Prayer of Saint Francis? Has the Cardinal not read it?
If the Cardinal thinks he can forgo a portion of his faith and keep the rest he is sadly mistaken.

I support Cardinal George and his moral position on religious freedom but I would ask were was he when Obamacare took our economic freedom?

MHatch on February 27, 2012 at 10:11 PM

Let me help, since you have somehow forgotten how OBoneheadCare was passed. First, read this, from Weekly Standard.

Specifically:

When explaining why the Catholic bishops oppose the Senate version of Obamacare, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, explained that it would dramatically change the “status quo in federal abortion policy, as reflected in the Hyde Amendment,” which “excludes abortion from all health insurance plans receiving federal subsidies.” By contrast, the Senate bill stipulates only that at least one of the “proposed multi-state plans will not cover elective abortions – all other plans (including other multi-state plans) can do so, and receive federal tax credits. This means that individuals or families in complex medical circumstances will likely be forced to choose and contribute to an insurance plan that funds abortions in order to meet their particular health needs.”

Cardinal George also pointed out that the Senate bill authorizes billions of dollars in “new funding outside the scope of the appropriations bills” covered by the Hyde amendment’s restrictions. New funds for community health centers could fund abortions because no statute would prevent changing regulations that currently abide by Hyde. He also complained that the Senate bill lacks Hyde’s strong conscience protections on abortion and offers no “meaningful” conscience protection beyond abortion.

I don’t know … seems pretty opposed to me. No, it’s not about the mandate…it’s about abortion. But he’s not a politician or an economist; he’s a Catholic Cardinal. What do you want?

No, dude. He remembers (vividly, it seems) the illegal aliens marching in the fuc*ing streets with Mexican flags and the Catholic Bishops cheering them (since that’s where all their new members come from), and he’s saying why support them now just because O’Bonehead finally gored their ox?

I get it. But I’ll stand on principle and wait for the Catholic Church to figure out what that means later.

Boomer show us where the bad man touched you.
In all seriousness I really hope you find comfort and peace. You seem very troubled.
quiz1 on February 27, 2012 at 10:17 PM

This IS just a sensitive issue for me. I AM a lifelong Catholic and went to Catholic school. I COULD have been one of those children but luckily was not.

I AGREE they shouldn’t have to pay for it. But they don’t know, whatever circular logic to the otherwise anyone comes up with, it’s not on their bill.

But the rest of this is just BS by Bishops who have little justifiable right to pontificate on matters of sex and right and wrong to the rest of us when these mandates are only around because they agreed it was OK to hoist them on the rest of us with Obamacare.

The Catholic church betrays us over and over and over again, why oh why, go along with this political ploy for their sake? It has nothing to do with paying for someone contraception anymore.

The church should be passing the sh*t out for free anyway as the best cure for anything(abortion)is PREVENTION. But here, a very tainted man Cardinal, is playing political dishonest games for nothing but posture. And it makes me ill in the words of Rick Santorum.

I don’t know … seems pretty opposed to me. No, it’s not about the mandate…it’s about abortion. But he’s not a politician or an economist; he’s a Catholic Cardinal. What do you want?

Jaibones on February 27, 2012 at 10:23 PM

Personally, I’d kind of like for our politicians to stay the path of following the constitution, and for the church to keep its nose out of political matters altogether. Unfortunately, neither is happening. And since membership in the church is voluntary, but citizenship is not, well, there you go.

“… the church wants to make the political argument that even though it’ll be no where on their bill, just being associated with someone being allowed access to bc in the ranks is tantamount to an action worthy of shutting down hospitals and schools. That’s just a step too far for such a tainted hero as the CC as you say…

It’s the same type of twisted logic.”

It seems that you do not understand that the Catholic church pays a portion of their employee’s health insurance premium – just like most other employers, so the church would help pay for providing “free” contraceptives as ordered by the government.

Remember that the Catholic church is literally people.. and those people have individual and group rights to assemble as a church and as a business and to the ‘free exercise’ of their religion.

If the government attempts to force behavior/actions that violate the free exercise of their rights, then the church must choose which course to take: capitulate to the current government’s stripping them of their rights; get out of the health care business; or use their right to fight the government’s action.

There are two right answers here:

1) The government should be rebuked and restricted from usurping the 1A protected rights of the church’s in question.

2) Employers should be completely prohibited from providing health care insurance to employees and all of us should obtain health care insurance directly from insurance companies and/or brokers as we best see fit in exactly the same way we purchase other insurance.

“Personally, I’d kind of like for our politicians to stay the path of following the constitution, and for the church to keep its nose out of political matters altogether.”

“… or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Churches are quite literally comprised of people and must have the same rights as others to be involved in political matters because, just like the rest of us, they can be, will be and are effected by those political matters.

The Constitution protects the rights of all Americans and (whether any of us like it or not) specifically calls out that religious establishments shall not be prevented from the free exercise of their religion.

Your statement above would be no worse in it’s disregard for human rights if it said:

“Personally, I’d kind of like for our politicians to stay the path of following the constitution, and for Blacks (or Whites, or Gays, or Women…) to keep their nose out of political matters altogether.”